I am working on a drug submission to a Health Agency. It consists of PDF documents to which I have added bookmarks and hyperlinks using the Adobe plug-in Toolbox. I use the Lorenz eValidator to validate the submission. One of the errors in the submission is "Corrupted PDF or unreadable files" and then it specifies "documents contain JavaScript in root catalog!". I don't know how to fix this.

What specific version of Acrobat do you have? It changes between releases.

Also, a validator uses the rules you choose. So it only rejects JavaScript because you've told it to. Which profile do you use, and why do you use that specific one? (I ask because sometimes people spend a lot of trouble fixing a "problem" that they only have because of an accidental choice of profile).

I am using Adobe Pro 11. I cannot reject the rules because they are requirements from Health Canada. I use the Lorenz eValidator with CA Profile 3.2. Health Canada has just informed me that I need to fix the problem.

This is not a program by Adobe, but a tool developed by a third-party. You can try to remove the scripts it adds to the file, but it might break everything you created with it... You can probably find these scripts under Tools - JavaScript - Document JavaScripts.

Yes, these will be the foundation of your interactive PDFs. If you remove the foundations everything will collapse. Probably. It is alarming to think that it might change the visible content of a healthcare submission, so I think you need to look closer at your workflow. Now, I'm guessing that the authorities don't want an interactive PDF, just a flat PDF (like a book). So you need to look at why you are adding interactive elements to the PDF files.

If you don't know how they get there, please take us step by step though how the PDFs are made, and what is done after they are made.

(We also need to find out why you can't find this Acrobat option, of course).

We'd like to help. Please let us know EXACTLY which bit of advice you are trying to follow (please copy and paste it so we can be certain). And let us know EXACTLY what happens when you try to follow the advice.

I will warn you though, I hope this is clear: removing JavaScript - which you obviously want to do, for good reasons - may mean that the file is broken, or looks different. The file might have to be made in an entirely different way, or fixed with different software, or done again. Because of the importance (ethical, legal and financial) of accuracy in your industry, I strongly advise you to have a visit from an expert who will be accountable for this and can sign it off to meet industry standards. I am not comfortable that I may give you advice which you blindly follow (being not an IT person) with serious consequences, when I cannot see your files (and for obvious reasons must not see!).

You might need to pay for consultancy with a PDF expert. An ordinary IT person typically won't know the details of what Acrobat JavaScript does and the consequences of removing. (Sorry I have no recommendations for finding such an expert).